Build A Custom Conflat Match Wagon, A Great Tool For Model Railway Shunting!

Well I started out with a bit of a problem! The fact that I build a great new layout of a shunting yard (TMD) and I have a few HST Power Cars (dummies) that I want to use on the layout, but they don’t have any hooks on their couplings at the back of the HST Power cars, and my pair of Class 08 shunters only have one hook on each of the locomotives. So I needed a wagon on my layout that has hooks to move the power cars if the shunter’s are in the wrong position.

Now I have seen other modellers use 35ton oil tankers as barrier wagons, or a CDA wagons but in my option ‘It does not look right’ even though in real life these wagons are used. The only types of barrier wagons that I could find for sale were for  nuclear freight and a 35ton tanker with ‘barrier wagon‘ written on the side, and to be honest I did not fancy these options. Well I remember reading a copy of Traction (A British diesel magazine) and seeing an article on a little flat bed wagon use for shunting at a goods yard, so that was what I wanted to have on my layout for shunting the HST Power Cars, you can see an example of this wagon here.

But the problem I faced now is that as hard as I tried I could not find a wagon like this for sale. So a bit of scratch building was in order to make this little wagon come to life on my layout. Given that I have already built two other wagons in the same way that I was going to build this one, I had a very good idea of how I was going to build this flat bed wagon. (To view the other Article on scratch building wagons Click Here)

The ‘Shunting Wagon’ comes to life

So I started with removing the top of a small disused wagon  with a screwdriver, the wagon was a small green Hornby Lucas Wagon that I have not really used in some time so it did not matter about taking it apart.

But because the wagon is really small, without it’s container on top it is really light. So the first thing I need to address was how to add weight, un-like the Pipe-Carriers I had made I could not stick anything on top of the flat-bed of the wagon as this would compromise the look of this wagon, so the weight was going to have to go under the wagon. I had some brass tube that would fit perfectly under the wagon, so I cut a piece that would fit snug between both the axles of the wagon.

TIP: The reason for adding the extra weight is to stop the small lightweight wagon from pinging of the track as I push other locomotives to where I want them, plus sometimes lighter smaller wagons will de-rail over points so adding weight has it advantages.

So when I was happy with the brass tubes size I painted it black, then stuck it to the bottom of the wagon with a bit of NoMoreNails then painted the adhsive with black paint as to hide the white colour that it was.

Then I used a bit of card and stuck it to the chassis of the wagon with All-Purpose Glue, as you will see two other bit of card were added to give a bit of relief to the a plain flat bed. This also helped to make it look a bit more purpose built I felt. Then a yellow base coat was painted on the whole flat-bed and top of the chassis.

Now came the detailing of the shunting wagon, given that I can’t really remember the full look of the prototype that this wagon is based on, I decided on a Yellow and black Hazard striped look suited it very well (as you can see in the picture here.)

Well now you can see the almost finished product, there will be a little more detail added to this wagon at a later stage. But again given this project has cost almost nothing it is a really effective and useful addition to any modern shunting yard layout.

SAVE MONEY and Build Your Own New Wagons! Wagons On A Budget

Well with January 2012 coming to an end and still there is a lack of funds for new railway stock for quite a lot of us because of all the bills still coming in. It can become quite a depressing time with February’s issues of your favourite Model Railway Magazines coming out with all the new model railway ranges for 2012 and not having the money to buy them.

But even thought it is really nice when you get brand-new stock on your layout, you must not be too disheartened about this situation as this might just be the idea you could do with…

So why not build you own new stock?

Yes again I am talking about recycling, when I was putting my first layout together I brought a lot of Different Rolling Stock and to be honest some of it  does just not fit in with my new layout design. So I made the decision to build some new stock for my layout.

Taking Apart Old Rolling Stock

Now back when I built my first layout Boddington I brought two Hornby Railroad range wagons, the bright red Tredegar ones. Now that I have decided that these two wagons would be the sacrificed units that I would use for the new wagons, given that I have not used these wagons for quite sometime. Taking apart the old wagons was quite a simple thing to do, I simply turned them over and released the container part of the wagon from the chassis with use of a flat blade screwdriver.

I cut two bits of card to make the new bed of the wagons, as shown at the bottom of the photo

Fitting A New Bed

Now that I have a pair of chassis’s to work around I made the decision to make them flat-bed wagons as I did not have any in my collection, but have fancied making this type of rolling stock an addition for a while. So with the two bits of of card already cut it was simple as adding a bit of glue to the card and sticking them to the chassis. Then I painted the whole of the beds with some enamel paint, for the base colour I chose a matt black.

Deciding What Products The New Wagons Will Carry

Well now that I Had a pair of flat-bed wagons ‘what should they carry?’ well a quick trip into my home workshop ended in finding a length of ‘brass tube’ so ‘Concrete Pipes’ it was. So with a hacksaw I cut 8 lengths of the brass tube at a length that was a couple of mm’s smaller than the width of the wagon. Now how to hold the pipes in place? Again thinking of stuff that I already had that I could put to use, I came up with using matchsticks and painting them to resemble wood blocks (or chocks) was the idea that I came up with.

I stuck the matchsticks down with multi-purpose glue, as wet PVA might warp the card-made wagon bed. When gluing down the matchstick I put the brass tubes without glue between the matchstick to make sure that they were a tight fit with no gaps and then left them to dry.

While the first wagons matchsticks are drying I repeated process on the second wagon bed

Then the matchstick were painted with a mixture of brown poster paint and a little bit of black enamel paint, as this combination will soak into the matchstick to give a more wooden look to the matchsticks, instead of a painted look that using solely enamel paint would have produced.

The Finished Product

Well as you can now see the almost finished Pipe-carrying wagons are on there way to being finished, and I have been amazed at how good they look especially for the really low price of nothing. Well in fact they were built from stuff that I just had lying around but that is as close to nothing as you can get. So for the sake of a few hours work why not give it a go and pay a bit more of them credit card bills this month. And ultimately you will have some new stock for your layout! There are so many things you could put on a flat-bed wagon so get thinking of what you have lying around.

All that I want to do is paint the top half of the chassis red and give them a bit of  weathering

NOTE: Now some of you may have noticed that I said that I cut 8 bits of brass tube, but in the photo above there are only six. And yes this was how I decided to finish them due to I did not want both wagons to look to uniform, as the real railway is never that uniform.

Inspired To Build More

Yes building these two wagons has given me inspiration to build another wagon!

 View the whole article article here 

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Simply Doing The ABC’s In Cedar, From A CAD Design

As Like so many projects in this country start I guess “I met some one in the pub,” that was showing a bit of woodworking that some one had made. But they had quoted an extreme amount of money for this simple project. All that this person wanted was two names of their children, in a bold wood to hang on the wall of their bedrooms. Well the landlord knowing that I dabble in a bit of woodworking ask me if I could do it for cheaper, and I said yes…

Step 1

First thing I did  was to draw to scale all the letters of the alphabet, the size of the letter was determined by the material size which was 90 by 120 mm. I decided to do this in my Favorited 2D CAD program Draftsight, reason being if I was to just use word with some really large font it would not fill the whole area correctly. As most of us know a word processor program is for writing letters no for designing, so using a word processor would have been more hassle than it is worth. In this CAD drawing I made 26 boxes 90 by 120mm and then use a variety of simple geometry to draw eye pleasing Bold letters from A to Z, using the rule of “the width of all the lettering will be 20mm.”

TIP: Doing this means that I will have all the lettering to the exact scale when it come to printing the letters. Plus I will have all  the letters of the alphabet ready for other projects that I might want to use them in. 

If you wish to use my CAD design you can down load it here in PDF format and .DWG format for use in  CAD. Rember not to scale the prints as they will print to the excact size of 90mm by 120mm.

Step 2

Then I Printed out all the lettering then so I could cutting out all the required letters for this project. I used a steel rule and a snap-off blade knife for this part, as getting a perfect cut-out is paramount for the finished product to come out as the desired shape without error.

TIP: You could use scissors but when cutting out inside the shape might prove difficult.

As mentioned I only cut the shapes that were in this project to save time in the build process, I will at a later stage when I have time, go back to cut out the rest of the alphabet. I have also just use normal weight paper, as it does not really matter so long as the desired shape is cut out.

Step 3

Then using ordinary household prick-stick (or a cheap replica in my case) I have stuck the the paper templates to a scrap bit of hardboard, this will then be cut to make a jig of all the letters. I tend to use Hardboard for all my flat jigs (templates) as it is an inexpensive product at around £4 for a sheet at B&Q.

TIP: Jigs of cut-out projects can be useful, to get a constant shape every time. I have made countless jigs and never thrown one away yet, cause they can be use on so many different projects. so even thought at the time it may seem like a long winded thing to do for the first project it will save time on the next couple of projects, so they really do pay for them self’s in the end.

Step 4

TIP: Many times on different projects you will find yourself waiting for glue to dry or for materials to be delivered, well why not do something else while you wait?

Yes while the glue on the templates dry attaching the paper to the Hardboard, I set about cutting the Cedar wood into the size required on my Compound Mitre Saw. Cause the material that I had got for this project was 90mm width ways, all I had to do was cut the length down to 120mm. This process is really simple with a Mitre Saw simply mark one of the bits of material then place it on top of multiple other bits and cut, this will insure all the parts are the same size.

TIP: I have gone with Cedar due to the simple fact that it was a great thickness I found at my local wood mill, the Cedar was from a pile of offcuts all about the same size and cost a really small amount per piece. This is a great way to reduce the cost of the project!

Step 5

Well now I cut out the strait lines on my Band-Saw as this gave a very fast and actuate cut, you could cut out the strait lines using a Electric Fretsaw or Coping-Saw by hand, but personally I prefer a Band-Saw for this task. I also cut some of the curves on the Band-Saw but this job is better done with a Fretsaw or Coping-Saw, as a band-Saw is not that good at cutting tight curves.

TIP: When cutting the jig allow for the width of a pencil line, by making the whole jig a millimetre smaller, cause this will make the final piece the correct size. Not taking this step could make the jig too big for the material that you have cut.

Step 6

Now to cut out any inside parts, there are a couple of was of doing this, you could cut through the area you want to keep with a single saw line. Or you could take the step that I have taken and drill a couple of holes in the area you want to remove, this will allow a Fretsaw or Coping-Saw blade to be put through to cut out the inside of the jig as shown in the pictures below.

Don’t forget to sand all the edges when you have completed the jig!

Step 7

Now it is as simple as drawing round the jig, then cut out the shape as I did with the jig. By using the Band-Saw to cut out the strait lines and the simple curves, then using the Fretsaw to cut the remaining curves.  Making sure to cut to the inside of the pencil lines with the blade going through the line drawn on the wood, as you will remember I have made sure to allow for a pencil line width.

TIP: If you are doing a complicated shape you could scribble on the area you are going to cut out, so that you can clearly identify what is scrap and what you want to keep.

Step 8

Then I simply drilled holes in the area I needed to cut out as I did with the jig, then again using the Fretsaw cut the inside lines out .

Step 9

Then  I  Sanded down all the lettering 

Then Done!

Recycling A Railway Layout, Part 3 “Laying the Track”

Welcome back again, well now I get to the part of the layout build that makes a railway look like a railway “Laying The Track” well a railway is just a road with out it’s rails. Even though this task can seem a bit dauting at times it is really good fun. But the main thing to consider is that I use a DC railway, so I will be highlighting all the parts of the track laying to make this DC track run smoothly (and some of what I am doing will not be correct for a DCC layout! But you still might find some useful parts though.) Also the track will be split down into sections isolated by switches so that I can run one train at a time on the layout, with multiple trains on it. As I have recycled the track from the Boddington layout I will be using mainly Hornby track and points, with two points being Peco.

A) Even though I have not got the budget for electric points I have laid out the track in the place that I want it and made sure to drill holes for electric point motors, as this will stop the need for taking up the track once the layout it complete.  HINT! Not taking this step will cause loads of trouble if you ballast the track! To secure the track to the baseboard I will be using track pins (or small nails.) HINT! Using a nail punch to push them into the sleepers as to help hide them! As in real life you don’t see big nails protruding from the centre of the track.	B) To make sure you track goes on strait and there is no problems when laying the rest of the track, make sure the first bit of track is strait by using a strait edge. As you can see the first bit of track I laid was a left hand point. This gave me the best chance of getting the rest of the track strait cause of it having one flat edge, you could use a short strait bit of track if you like. To make sure I kept the main long stretch of track parallel to the layout front, I used a aluminium meter rule and slide it along as needed. HINT! I have needed to take this step due to using 6 parallel points to move trains from one line to the other, not taking this sept will cause problems in laying other points. When laying the track I have left a lot of breaks in the track so I can successfully isolate areas of the track (you can see example of this in step ‘J‘)
C) Given this layout is a TMD (Traction Maintenance Depot) it could not really be one with out a maintenance pit (or my case two.) So before laying the track that would go over the pit I have to cut the baseboard. Marking out the pit was simple. First I marked out the area where the maintenance shed would go, then I placed the track that I was going to use making sure the loading gauge was ok, then marked the width of the rails at both ends of the pit, then with a ruler drew a lines along the lengths of the pits  HINT! Make sure you mark the rail width and NOT the edge of the sleepers as the track will fall through the hole!	D) Now that you have the pits marked out I simply chisel out the holes, I have decided to chisel out the holes as I used 12mm Chipboard and I wanted ramps at each end. You could just drill holes within the marked area and use a tenon saw to cut the holes. HINT! if you are going to use a saw on chipboard be sure to use an old saw as chipboard can contain Metal Fragments, because hitting these fragments will blunt your saw!
E) Now that I have the maintenance pits cut out I checked that I have got the size correct by placing the track over the pits. So now it the time for a bit of adjustment.	F) Once I was happy with the size of the pits I need to secure the track to the baseboard, but I cannot use the holes in the middle of the track as there is no baseboard there any more. So what I did was drill holes in the end of the sleepers about an inch apart on both sides of the track, so that I could pin the track down securely. I used a DrillPress for this task so that I did not slip and ruin the sleeper ends HINT! If you use a hand drill make sure you make an indent first with a Punch or a Pin in the middle of the sleeper ends to stop from the drill slipping and ruining the sleeper end.
G) Now that I have laid the track, I have gone over the layout pushing down with my hand to make it is all secure to the baseboard. And if need be add a few more panel pins to make the track flush to the baseboard and reduce any movement.	H) Now that I am happy with the position of the track I have run a dummy loco over the whole track  to confirm that it will not derail. HINT! Even though you have secured the track there can still be movement, so dismantle the layout and reassemble it now! just to be sure it matches up again!
I) Now as I mention at the start of this article I was going to be isolating parts on this layout. It is best to test the track with a multimeter first, what I am looking for is shorts, as I don’t want the track shorting and the trains stopping! HINT! Given there is not loops in the layout it should be fine, But test it anyway! Once you are happy the track is not going to short and the isolated parts of the track  are isolated from the rest of the track, get a controller and test the track with a Loco to make sure you connect power to the whole layout in the correct place. I used wire with crocodile clips ends clipped to the track in the place I will solder the wires too, then I drilled the holes in the baseboard.	J) As you can see this is an example of a break in the track, for the purpose of isolating the track. Now comes the fun part of the track laying, soldering the power wires to supply the power to the track. I have decided to permanently supply power to one side of the track and use RED wire, and to cut the power to the isolated part of track I have used BLACK wire. As you can see in the photo I have tinned the track, as well as the wire that will be attached to the track, this will make it very easy to attach the wire. HINT! When cutting the wires make sure they are long enough to reach where they are meant to be attached to the power supply or switches, as once they are soldered they will need de-soldering if they are not lon enough!
K) HINT! I have been soldering for a long time and you must remember to heat the joint and NOT the solder. Also hold the soldering iron to the joint and do not dab it, as there will not be enough heat to create the joint, and the solder & wire will just fall off! You can see the wires attached, you might just want to file the excess solder down now so the solder is flush with the rails and run a train across it to make sure it does not de-rail.	L) Now simply push the wires though the holes in the baseboard. And make the seen wires small as possible.
M) Now that I have soldered the wires to all the track, again I tested it with a multimeter for shorts, by  putting all the RED wires together & the same with the BLACK wires. Now attaching the probes to the bunched wires I should see there is no connectivity, also it is best to set all the point to both positions while the multimeter is connected. HINT! Remove all the trains from the track and any tools as this can create a short. But if you do find a short you can get it sorted now. Thankfully I did not find a short, but still best test it now no matter how careful you have been!	N) Now all that is left to do is check the track by running a Train all over it! I have decided to use a Class 08 for this test as I have personally found this is the train that is most likely to create shorts on the points. So I have connected a controller with a short detector to the bunched wires with crocodile clips, and then run the train all over the track, looking for shorts and dead spots. Once I was happy that there were none I can start on the wiring. HINT! Make sure you take this step to test the track, as no matter how careful you have been you could still have made a mistake. And it is easier to fix it now!
Well as fun as it has been in this part, it has taken about two days to complete, as getting this part correct will help stop any troubles and problems that might crop up later on in the construction and could become costly! In the next part Part 4, “Wiring An Advanced DC Layout” Learn how I have gone about wiring this advanced DC isolated Layout.

ALSO CHECK OUT THE REST OF THIS SERIES

RECYCLING A RAILWAY LAYOUT